Paper Horses
by ToastedPine
Summary: While on the roof, Ranma ponders the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, and then comes to the conclusion that the answer is 42. Too bad he'll never be smart enough to formulate the question.


Author's brick-like foreword: Ranma unpacking the mysteries of his life as a result of thinking on the roof is both lazy and unbelievable.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma One-half.

Paper Horses

By ToastedPine

Ranma was on the roof.

Ranma was on the roof because he needed to think. Unknown to him, he was actually the chosen avatar, not of Chaos, but of the Goddess of Roofs. Being an avatar of the Goddess of Roofs had its benefit: Ranma received a temporary x2 billion modifier on his 'think' stat. Unfortunately, the Goddess of Roofs was also known in her pantheon as someone who was rather…difficult to get along with, which was due in large part to the fact that most people didn't know she existed. Her general demeanor would therefore pass onto any person who accessed her power.

This night in particular, when the sky was clear and the stars were winking suggestively like entire pantheons of hot celestial bodies, he was especially sharp minded. No, it wasn't because the weather was good or that he was at peace, the real reason was that he finally remembered to think of his life as a battle while having the Roof Goddess Modifier in effect. This raised his mental abilities from 'so-so' to the Anything Goes Master of Angsty, Emotional Self-Reflection.

That's just how Ranma's mind worked. His noggin was pretty much paperweight with a pigtail unless it met some very special conditions.

Now, the thing on Ranma's mind as he sat on the roof was of monumental importance. In fact, he even made a list because what he was thinking about was so important. The list was about his life, which his temporarily improved mind broke down neatly and efficiently like figures on a spreadsheet.

First, there was Akane. What a bitch. She cooked just to hurt him. That's why she spent all that time in the kitchen trying to make him a meal, and then cried when he said it tasted like puke. And as for her sacrificing her safety by blocking Saffron's attacks? Puh-leaze, she only did it because she always wanted to prove that "she was a martial artist too." Her actions had nothing to do with wanting to protect him.

Second, there was Nabiki. Her betting and schemes were almost at the level of organized crime. She had bookies in every school district, and he once heard that people in Poland placed bets on one of his matches against Ryouga. She also sold extremely smutty pictures of his girl form, but that was all okay. It's not like he had any sense of pride or modestly at all, and the billions of yen from Nabiki's schemes probably went to supporting the Tendo family. Since Soun was nothing but a crying bum who did nothing for the community and Pop didn't have a job at Tofu's place as an assistant, someone had to be the whore to keep the family afloat.

That brought him to the third person his father, Genma. Genma sounds like Gendo. Did he even need a better reason?

He had no real friends either. Mousse and Ryoga were the closest friends he had, and they wanted to kill him more than have fun with him.

Then there were Ukyo and Shampoo. They both treated him like a prize and never cared about his feelings, which really sucked. He had to admit, the sacrificed a little to be near him, but not much. Ukyo only lost most of her childhood, and Shampoo only had to stay away from her home. He didn't even know why Shampoo was in such a hurry to get him (Japan was so much better than the backwater she called a village).

He was tired of being treated like dirt and smacked around because he was so gosh darned irresistible. That's it! He was getting out of Nerima. Screw them. SCREW THEM ALL!!

The only one who treated him like a human being was Kasumi. Kasumi was an angel. Kasumi gave him food. Kasumi's only insensitive moments were pushing him off to Akane and helping to drape C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-felines all over him. Everyone loved her. He hoped she would drop everything important to her and marry Tofu (Her family was ass in his estimation). That was basically all she was good for, being Tofu's wife. He was sure she'd be happy with that. Kasumi was nice that way.

Decision made, Ranma got up and jumped off the roof.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, he turned to look up at the roof scratched his head. "Why do I get the feeling that I was thinking of something important just now?"

He stood there and scratched his chin for a few more minutes before shrugging. "It'll come to me. I wonder if Kasumi has any leftovers from dinner…"

The pigtailed martial artist happily trotted off to the kitchen to get some food. He and Akane were going to the amusement park tomorrow—not that he was looking forward to seeing the Tomboy's cute smile or anything. He just wanted to spend a day in peace. Pop had given him money to buy some food, which was a plus. The only problem was the fiancée brigade, but he figured he could bribe Nabiki into giving him and Akane a few hours of peace. After that…he never really had it in him to begrudge Nabiki her fun for too long.

Ranma smiled. Tomorrow was a brand new day. In the morning, He'd spar with Pop over the koi pond just like every other day.

Truth be told, he was happy about having a home and people to care about. Sure there were complications, but it would all work out in the end. Beneath all the quibbling, they'd help each other out whenever push-came-to-shove. His battle with Herb showed that, at the very least, he could count on Mousse and Ryouga in a tight spot.

END.

Author's notes:

There are two Ranmas in this fic. The first Ranma is the Ranma on the roof who complains endlessly about his life and then comes to an incredibly biased conclusion. Too often, authors are blinded by what they themselves want for Ranma that Ranma's thoughts become a two-dimensional bashfest.

The second Ranma is the Ranma off the roof who is more balanced and closer to canon. He's the one who tries to live outside the world of the author's biases. I'll admit that he'll never be perfect, but it's important that we always try to write this Ranma instead of the other.

Special thanks to Fallacy for knocking the kinks out of this story and Tama Saga for suggesting I put in an explanation.


End file.
